It wasn't a great day when I heard that I had failed my eleven plus exam. I was so scared of the reaction from my parents who quite rightly had high hopes for their only child. I didn't tell them for over a week and by the time my mum spoke to my teacher it was too late to appeal. Most of my childhood pals went to Bellshill Academy but I was destined for New Stevenston Junior Secondary, where you left at fifteen. Any hope of my parents for me to be the first in the family to get to university were dashed.
On my first day at the school, some boys from third year played football in the playground with my new shiny satchel. It was quite a rough school but I really took to science and it was my best subject, especially chemistry. I liked woodwork too and made my mum a coffee table in third year, but there wasn't much that you would call academic. This was a school to prepare you for work. No languages were taught on the presumption that a labourer in the steelworks didn't need to know french.
I cycled to school just about every day down the old track bed of the railway that served the local pits. My parents were determined that whatever happened I would never work down a mine. My father and his brothers all did that at fourteen. My dad was an engine driver and my mum a part-time cleaner so there was no academic background. When I was fourteen and at the Kelvin Hall with my parents, I asked my dad what the big building up on the hill was. He said it was Glasgow University and that this would be the closest I would get to it.
Before I left school, a careers advisor suggested I become a joiner as I was good at woodwork. However my science teacher suggested I apply for a pre-vocational science course at Coatbridge Technical College. I did and I passed the entrance exam and my parents were happy to support me. Others at the school were not in that position and had to get a job.
At college I made friends with Billy from Shotts and we were on the same course and he was an only child too. We got on well together. My favourite subject was chemistry but the General Studies lecturer, George, took us under his wing and tried to expand our working class horizons. He suggested that instead of the Daily Record we should read, at least once a week, the London Times, as it was called then. But a fifteen year old opening up that paper on the Coatbridge bus was a call too far. But he did encourage us to think for ourselves. He also talked about further education and getting to university. On our last day he took us for a pint!
Billy and I had applied for and got jobs as trainee industrial chemists at Ravenscraig steelworks in the big laboratory there next to the power station. At the interview there was talk of further qualifications through day-release and it would be at Coatbridge Technical College again and we would see our friend George occasionally. However, as we went to school that didn't do O-levels we could only do a City and Guilds course in Metallurgy, not the Higher National Certificate that might get us a degree. We decided to go to night school to get O-levels and sit chemistry as an external candidate as we were chemists anyway.
We passed our O-levels and our Metallurgy course and when we met up with George again about maybe going to a Glasgow college to get Highers and leaving the steelworks and our parents were OK about that and in those days you got a grant too. One day after this he shocked us by saying he had talked to the Education Department at the County Buildings in Hamilton and told us,
'You can just to back to school! You are both sixteen and can go into fifth year and do your Highers there. You just need to pick a school and talk to them.'
Billy lived in Shotts and me in Holytown so we picked Wishaw High School as it was equidistant. There was now real hope of getting to university. On our first day at assembly, the Rector introduced us as,
'Two young men from industry who are here to further their education and they will be with us for a year.'
Privately he said we didn't need a uniform and asked that if we wanted to smoke to do it outside the school gates. I really enjoyed my time there and it was so different from my last one and we still met George from time to time for a pint. We both got our Highers and good enough grades to get to university but the Eleven Plus Demon was still there. For almost all universities in Scotland you needed a language and you didn't get the chance at a Junior Secondary so our choices were limited. But I got into Strathclyde and Billy got into Stirling.
Billy got his degree in pharmacology and I got mine in politics, not chemistry! Later we both got a Masters Degree from our respective universities. We stayed connected with George throughout those years, usually for a pint and we will always remember it was him who offered us the hope of getting to university despite the many hurdles that failing the Eleven Plus exam threw at us.